


Victims of Our Own History

by Fallynleaf



Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Episode: s06e16 Send in the Clones, F/F, Femslash February, Happy Ending, Subtext, canon alternate universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 15:11:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10027445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallynleaf/pseuds/Fallynleaf
Summary: Living in the future is easy, but navigating through muddy, incomplete memories is less simple.





	

**Author's Note:**

> One of the things I appreciate about Xena is that it has no less than three (entirely distinct) canon modern versions of Gabrielle and Xena. I always thought the episode with the clones might be an interesting jumping off point for further exploration, since it essentially gave us a Xena and a Gabrielle that were snatched out of the show in the latter half of its final season and then plopped directly into the modern world without any pesky lingering narrative threads. That episode leaned hard on the subtext, but deliberately kept it only at that level. Unsurprising, I guess, since this was 2001, but still a little disappointing.
> 
> I guess this fic is my attempt to address that.

It’s surprisingly easy to adjust to living in the future, all things considered. But then, this is not the first time that Gabrielle and Xena have experienced suddenly waking up in a different era. Though, losing 2,000 years is a lot more jarring than losing 20.

But they do what they’ve always done: they adapt. And maybe, Gabrielle lets herself think of it as almost their chance at a happy ending. Their chance to grow old together.

She remembers how things ended, now. They both do. As soon as they could, they watched every episode of the television show, trying to spark memories.

They laughed over some of the good times. Cried in memory of the harder times. Let themselves feel hurt as they relived all of their breaking points.

Gabrielle remembers most of the important things, but the record is still spotty. There are still blank spaces she doesn’t know how to fill, moments that she had not recorded in her scrolls, instances that the writers did not include in the show. Countless moments of little nothings that Gabrielle hadn’t even thought about back then, but which she now bitterly misses.

It feels incomplete. Like having only scattered pieces of herself, the rest of her identity forever lost to the sands of history.

But even that might be bearable, if just for another chance at being able to live out the rest of their lives together. Except, Gabrielle is missing something that’s a lot bigger than that, and she doesn’t know what it is, only that she feels its absence keenly every day of her new life.

Also, she starts to develop, well, _feelings_ towards Xena that she doesn’t understand.

Sometimes, Xena will say something or do something, and Gabrielle will get a doofy expression on her face, and she’ll have a sudden fierce urge to lean up and kiss Xena. Most of the time, she’ll go ahead and do it. And Xena will kiss her back, and for a moment, things will almost feel okay, and Gabrielle will almost fill that hollow part of herself that she can’t remember how to get back.

But they both know that they kissed each other a lot. That part is recorded in the scrolls; it’s shown in episodes of the television show.

What is not recorded is what Gabrielle wishes she could do to Xena after she kisses her.

The Xena Scrolls don’t talk about Gabrielle undressing Xena and running her hands over Xena’s body. They don’t describe Xena’s bare skin pressed against Gabrielle’s, Xena’s fingers moving inside of her as they catch each other’s moans on their lips. The Xena Scrolls don’t even talk about Gabrielle curling up in Xena’s arms afterward, the two of them wrapped up in each other beneath a starry night, their bare skin aglow with firelight.

Gabrielle wonders if those feelings are somehow new. If the modern world has twisted their love into sexual desire that neither of them had felt, well, _before_.

She pours over the scrolls, looking for any evidence, for any indication that this had been part of their lives before, that Xena had reciprocated, that it’s not just unrequited pining.

Nothing. Not a single unambiguous line. Plenty of _subtext_ , maybe, if she reads into her own words, but nothing definitive.

So she just keeps kissing Xena platonically and saying nothing about it.

And for a long time, Xena just kisses her and says nothing, too.

Until Gabrielle can’t stand it anymore, and one day, after she kisses Xena, she starts to say something, but she can’t get any words out past: “Xena, I—“

Then Gabrielle covers her face with her hands and cries.

Xena just holds her and gently rubs soothing circles on her back until Gabrielle’s tears have run dry.

“I have feelings, Xena,” Gabrielle says.

“I can tell,” Xena says.

Gabrielle rolls her eyes, smiling weakly. “For you, I mean,” she says. “Feelings that are more than friendship.”

“I know. I love you, too,” Xena says, her voice gentle.

“Yes, but it’s more than that,” Gabrielle says, pulling away from her. “Like, I—I want to have sex with you. Those kinds of feelings.”

For a moment, Xena just stares at her.

Right when Gabrielle is about to start despairing, Xena says, her voice quiet, “You have them too?”

“Yes,” Gabrielle breathes. “Gods, I think about it every day.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Xena asks.

Gabrielle looks away. “I’m guessing the same reason why _you_ didn’t say it. There’s nothing in the scrolls about it.” She feels a wave of frustration come over her, directed at her past self.

Xena is silent. “If it really was true, Gabrielle, wouldn’t you have written about it?” she asks, finally.

“I…” Gabrielle starts. She’d spent a long time thinking about it, mulling it over, trying to rationalize it to herself, to understand. “Maybe it was just so obvious to me, so much a part of who I was, who _we_ were, that I just… I thought it didn’t need to be said.” She takes a steadying breath. “Or maybe some part of me just wanted to keep it to myself. Wanted it to be something that we shared, just the two of us.”

“Or maybe it never happened between us,” Xena says, always the cynic to Gabrielle’s optimism.

“Yeah,” Gabrielle says. “Or that.” She doesn’t like to think about that. About their past selves never getting to share that level of intimacy.

“But does it really matter?” Xena asks. “Whether or not we had sex before, we don’t live in that world anymore, and we’re not the same people we were.”

Xena reached towards Gabrielle, lightly tracing her face, tucking her hair behind her ear. “We can make our own history here, too,” Xena says.

“And this time, I will make sure that this story gets told,” Gabrielle breathes.

Then Xena leans in and kisses all of the words from her lips.


End file.
